The air conditioning talk reminded me a situation I keep running into and it irks me every time. I live in southern Arizona. It's hot in the summer (and the spring, and the fall...).Every so often in the middle of the summer a co-worker or other acquaintance will say, in a panicky tone, "My air conditioner's broken!" I commiserate because that truly is a horrid, miserable thing to have happen. Then the person continues, "Yeah, now we're having to use the evaporative cooler."

All I have is an evaporative cooler. We don't have air conditioning. It's all I can do not to call the person a whiny wussbag.

Work annoyance:I've been waiting for upper management approval for some documents before I can release them to the public. Normally the process takes 1-2 weeks. It's all done through electronic forms so I can check the progress (or lack thereof) pretty easily.

Anyway, I've been waiting over SEVEN weeks for this approval. The person I'm awaiting approval from is 3 levels up so I can't exactly hassle her about it directly, so I asked my 2nd level manager and he talked to her about it. Last Monday he said she agreed to review the forms ASAP. Still hasn't happened and now he's on vacation this week so can't take up my case for me. There's no reason the information cannot be approved (3 sources independently verified) and it goes through another review after she signs it anyway. I even said (to 2nd level mgr) that I understand this is not a business critical thing and he said no, she should have done this in a timely manner since it's part of her job, or delegate it out. She's done neither and it's driving me batty since she's effectively holding my documents hostage.

So far I have already had to withdraw from one conference because I didn't get the approval in time to present my information. My next conference is next month and I'm going to be very, very irritated if I don't have the approval by then.

TMI on Facebook. I feel strangely violated when I'm minding my own business and scrolling down through humorous gifs and "this is how my day went" updates, and I come across a graphic image of someone's...er...endowments, shall we say. I'm not a prude, but I don't like being surprised with that.

The fact that I live with two cats who are killers of small things, and two terrier cross dogs with reasonably good prey instincts (they'll chase anything that moves, anyway), yet it is me, the human, who has to catch the mouse in the house.

Or, on one memorable day, the bird. Silly thing came down the flue of the woodheater and flew out the door when I opened it to see what the noise was. Cue several furries and three adults trying to catch said bird, it hiding behind a brick fireplace surround, and being gently prodded out, several hours later before finally being snagged and released.

When people act in a way that suggests I'm too stupid to put two and two together.

A coworker of mine has been dealing with a new client since January. They're hellish, to put it nicely. Very reluctant to give us information we need, constantly changing procedures, freaking out about pretty much anything and everything. Said coworker is out all this week on vacation. My senior came up to me at 3 pm last Friday afternoon and said, "hey LadySnowdon, you're going to be backing up Coworker while she's gone next week!". I said, "So I'll be working with HellishClient?". Senior said, "Yep, but don't worry! It's a super easy account, really similar to the one you're on now! It won't be a problem at all!".

Yeah. Sorry, I'm not so unobservant that I haven't noticed how stressed out Coworker has been in dealing with them. Pretending everything's okay, and expecting me to buy it is not cool.

Timid or panicky drivers. I was behind one this morning, and I would swear she stepped on her brake pedal at least once every 5 seconds, with no cars in front of her, plenty of space behind her, and on a straight road.

People who insist that they're right, no matter what. I made a mistake and "engaged the crazy" on YouTube when, after I commented on a video, someone responded to my comment with a tirade about how my opinions were wrong. When I said that it was a matter of opinion, he went on to list his opinions (and that's what they were), and ended his tirade with, "Fact!" No matter what I said, he had a response that not only had nothing to do with what I had just told him, but was filled with his opinions, accusations of me being stupid, how people who thought as I did were stupid, and always ended his posts with "Fact!". I got sucked in. I eventually backed out, and decided to just let him have fun in La-La Land.

**Edit** This was not a teenager I was arguing with, but a grown man. I would have expected his sort of behavior from a 13-year-old.

Timid or panicky drivers. I was behind one this morning, and I would swear she stepped on her brake pedal at least once every 5 seconds, with no cars in front of her, plenty of space behind her, and on a straight road.

That would make me nuts too. I rode with someone years ago, only a couple years older than me who would at times drive 20 miles below the speed limit when there was no good reason to and it was truly unsafe to be going that slowly but she refused to even go the speed limit. If you're that timid about driving, you shouldn't be.

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Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. You have a right to be here. Be cheerful, strive to be happy. -Desiderata

Timid or panicky drivers. I was behind one this morning, and I would swear she stepped on her brake pedal at least once every 5 seconds, with no cars in front of her, plenty of space behind her, and on a straight road.

That would make me nuts too. I rode with someone years ago, only a couple years older than me who would at times drive 20 miles below the speed limit when there was no good reason to and it was truly unsafe to be going that slowly but she refused to even go the speed limit. If you're that timid about driving, you shouldn't be.

Hehe - a couple of months back i went outlet shopping with a couple friends from work. One woman drove, and it was a straight shot up the interstate. But she drove well under the speed limit, and wouldn't pass a truck going even slower than she was, even though the rest of the road was WIDE open. at the end of the day, she wanted to hit one mroe store, and my other friend and I waited in the car. we both agreed that she was never driving us again!

Timid or panicky drivers. I was behind one this morning, and I would swear she stepped on her brake pedal at least once every 5 seconds, with no cars in front of her, plenty of space behind her, and on a straight road.

That would make me nuts too. I rode with someone years ago, only a couple years older than me who would at times drive 20 miles below the speed limit when there was no good reason to and it was truly unsafe to be going that slowly but she refused to even go the speed limit. If you're that timid about driving, you shouldn't be.

Hehe - a couple of months back i went outlet shopping with a couple friends from work. One woman drove, and it was a straight shot up the interstate. But she drove well under the speed limit, and wouldn't pass a truck going even slower than she was, even though the rest of the road was WIDE open. at the end of the day, she wanted to hit one mroe store, and my other friend and I waited in the car. we both agreed that she was never driving us again!

I scare people the other way. I grew up and learned to drive in Miami, FL. The traffic here is awful. Sometimes I think other drivers try to run you off the road for fun. I try not to be aggressive, but there are times when I have to be. I have a fair amount of family in the Atlanta area, and those people's crazy comes out in the form of fast driving, so I had to learn how to operate at higher speeds just to keep from getting run over.

Then I moved to North Dakota. I had to drive into Minneapolis quite frequently, and I'd often times have a friend with me. Now, for somebody from ND, Minneapolis has really heavy traffic. To somebody from Miami, LA, or NYC, the traffic in Minneapolis is a mere annoyance*. Apparently, my definition of "normal" city driving scared the beegeezus out of several of my friends, who considered my driving aggressive. I'd really hate to see how they'd react to driving in a city that actually has bad traffic.

*The traffic in Minneapolis does get congested, but people are, as a general rule, polite and non-aggressive. If you turn on your turn signals, people will actually let you in as opposed to cutting you off, like they do in Miami. They also tend to be polite and reasonable when it comes to allowing people to merge or turn out of a shopping center. These things make driving there so much more pleasant.

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Some people lift weights. I lift measures. It's a far more esoteric workout. - (Quoted from a personal friend)

Had a friend in college who was an extremely cautious driver as well. She would wait until she could see NO cars on the road before she'd pull out. My tongue got sore from me biting it to keep from saying "What the heck are you waiting for, an engraved invitation?"

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Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. You have a right to be here. Be cheerful, strive to be happy. -Desiderata